Nokia's 41MP Lumia 1020 looks impressive

You cannot make a slik pruse from a sow's ear. Any good point and shoot would out do the all of the above.
For photographers maybe they should build a phone into the camera.

Count me not impressed. Even the 5mp images, zoomed 100% do not look so great but overall, too bluish, exposure is off, etc. Samsung and Apple phones take better photos.

In lots of ways it's an amazing device and for those that mostly live in social media world and might do the occasional print it's ok.
Probably even an overkill. Pixels quantity does not define picture quality . If picture quality is your goal and if you are buying because you think all those pixels add quality you are following the wrong path.
Little cameras like the Sony RX100 knock any phone for six in quality and handling, it also fits into a shirt pocket.
Nothing wrong with a phone that takes pictures, great for zapping to friends Facebook etc , No problem having a little camera with you as well.
The Nokia is not a tool you would choose if photography is your goal and you don't mind making an effort to get great shots with something more capable.
You can still make an effort and get great shots with this, but the ultimate quality is what limits it's usefulness, so why not make the effort with something better.
Forget pixels numbers they mean very little in reality.

The fiare is very easy to handle. Just put your hand over the edge of the phone. No big deal :)

At full resolution, looks definitely to be more sharp than the the second best, Samsung S4. Scaled down to about same size as S4 and contrast & sharpness adjusted to match:

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/6371254956/photos/2638169/1020vss4

I was ready to be impressed by all the people on other forums saying how these high mp phones have full-frame dslp-like quality. These are dreadful! The noise reduction is so harsh it's painterly, but not in a good way. The noise is horrible, even with the noise reduction in those "low light" shots. Outdoors in bright light it's not terrible, looks about the same as the iPhone5, but compared to a real camera, dslr or mirrorless these are abysmal.

What is really impressive at the comparison above, is the sharpness of Samsung Galaxy S4 specially at the corners where Nokia faces serious chromatic aberration .-

Did Nokia fix preview vs. photo differences?

I have been using a Nokia Pureview 808 since last October.
When it cooperates, the photos it takes are excellent.

Unfortunately, what you see on the LCD preview isn't
necessarily what you'll get when you take the photo.
Under certain dramatic lighting conditions which happen
often outdoors, the actual photo can be very under or over
exposed, even though the preview was spot on. After
messing with exposure compensation, the photo
opportunity is often missed.

Also on USA versions of the 808, Nokia doesn't allow
the "camera sounds" to be disabled. Nothing worse
than hearing the beep of focus confirmation and
the "click" of taking the photo!

The 808 could have been a great little street shooter, but
these 2 problems really kill it for me. I sure hope the Nokia
1020 doesn't suffer from the same problems as the 808.

Please show the ISO selected and actual exposure comp
on the 1020.

Please get it right this time Nokia!

If the dual-core snapdragon isn't powerful enough to process a 5MP+34MP shot at once without taking six seconds between shots, they should just queue up raw photos in a buffer in memory like some cameras do and set the thread priority to low so that there won't be any lag or delays when shooting with the camera app. Speed is extremely important for mobile photography. The 34MP pictures are 10MB a piece and expand to around 100MB when uncompressed. There are 2GB of memory on this thing, a whole GB more than all other WP8 phones. It can handle a dozen raw images in a buffer at least. You won't get immediate satisfaction when trying to view a photo right after taking it, but taking the shot first and taking many shots one right after another without delay is more important than immediate viewing.

Make it happen in your next update Nokia.

Nokia 808 is good. What if Nokia try to make pocket camera with big sensor ? 1/1.7 what we can expect ?

Nokia Mobile phone sales is not good now, Nokia must consider this opportunity ;)

Impressive.

I wonder what Nokia is going to do to complete with Sony's Honami and its interchangeable lens system.

Good times for mobile photography enthusiasts :)

I must be the minority to think that the phone should be thicker to make up the protruding lens. That way, there are more room for a bigger battery and maybe other components as well.

I also think that the phone's side should be made flat such that it can stand on its side for taking photos with a timer or long exposure.

Nonetheless, this looks like a solid camera phone that I am willing to give up Android for - after 2 years when the price drop below $200 that is...

Not so impressive... I'd prefer a Nokia 808.

You should compare it to Galaxy S4 zoom. I'd like to see the difference.

Unless someone comes along and puts an APS-C sensor in a phone, the 808 will always be the true king of smart phone cameras.

Wait for the next iPhone and do a comparison review of S4, G2, One, 1020, iPhone, SONY Honami & RX100 II please.

This phone camera or camera phone is impressive, think about all the times you have used your phone's camera to capture and share important events, only to be let down or not capture the situation as accurately as you'd like. This phone advances ones ability to capture a situation and share it better. It is going to be fun. I think about 90% of all people are applauding Nokia for this new advancement, however, most of the remaining 10% can think whatever they want. It doesn't take away from this technology advancement. I do join the 10% group when its only available on AT&T in the US! A marketing blunder or genius, I'd go with the former.

Dammit Nokia...
Details gets ruined by bad NR.

A bit off-topic, but I can't help noticing how ironic it is that, when there were phone camera reviews at DPR, most comments were favourable, like 'this is the future of photography' and other nonsense; now that there is Connect, most comments about camera phones are dismissive!
Go figure.

For this sensor size, there is absolutely no DOF (aperture) control and no bokeh effect... As with any camera phone, It is just a snapshot camera aimed for image documentation and not artistic photography.

Looks like real phone for wedding photographers! JOKE!
Like some people said NOKIA is better Then 5D markII! Really BIG and GOOD pictures!
NOKIA is some real JOKE! Phone with 41mp! Kids will like that!

Absolutely horrible.

41MP is currently a feature that allows moderate zooming with a smartphone at good light. Not more and not less than that. Take it or leave it.

With the OIS of the 1020 it should be possible to get better zoomed videos and many low light shots should also become better.

OK, after a while I really feel challenged once again to put things on the internet right by myself:) I have had the 808 for a while now so this is my experience:

1) At wide angle very good IQ in good and in low light, comparable or better than all others smartphones (due to downsampling).
2) (Moderate) zooming at good light is a great and extremly usefull feature and the IQ is still absolutely on par with all other smartphones
3) Zoomed low light images have limited IQ. Period. Unfortunately.
4) Video recording is better than all other smartphones because of the sound quality and zoomability.
5) OIS is missing and would surely improve zoomed video.
6) OIS would help at still images in many occasions at low light. Of course not when shooting (most) moving subjects.

Discussions about 41 MP have no sense. (BTW, yes you can capture full 41MP with some special apps that use the whole sensor, not cropping to 4 :3 or 16:9 ratio)

At full resolution it seems the shots aren't as nice as the S4 whereas at 5MP, it takes the edge. It still seems the super high MP is a bit more of a marketing gimmick than anything else, or at least more of a tool to get better lower resolution shots.

Would have been interesting to know other specs about the camera which affect usability like autofocus speed, autofocus accuracy, cycle time between shots... A high resolution camera is all fine and dandy but if you can't take a shot quick enough, its use is limited.

Thanks Erin, great article. :)

We who make comments know better as we have not used the camera ...........

Well well, I can see that all the Android and Apple lovers are freaked out. Nokia is back on track with W8! I belive that Android plattform is a dead end street in the long run. It is a too complicated and energyconsuming system. Nokias new asha 501 has only 64 ram but is fast like hell and has a batterylife like no others. W8 is doing circles around Android with the same hardware and because Androis started as an open system you cant change it like Microsoft did with windows. All develpoement has to build on what is already there. I have Android on my tablet and W8 on my computer. It is my opinion that although Android is highly customable it is way to much hasseling and depends far to much on downloading external program. It is alsoextremle vulnerable. You get what you pay for and because Android is free you get a ton of ads and perhaps also virus at the same time. Cheers:)

the IQ is impressive and way better than other smartphones but the biggest problem with the 1020 is that its a Windows phone... if it was Android, then wow! but still way too many compromises using Windows, Nokia missed an opportunity (should gone with Android).

"Nokia's second attempt at a 41-megapixel camera phone" ->
Ok the actual image size is only 38MPix but I think you should not call this an attempt since "attempt" is the action of trying at something.
What they aimed at is to use a large sensor's excess pixels to create a cleaner digital zoom and small 2, 5 or 8MP (808)
And while we are at the sensor: the first "attempt" had a larger sensor. The 808 measures 1/1.2” in size, and the 1020 has a 1/1.5” .
The price of making it thinner and cheaper I guess.
Photography wise, the only added value of the 1020 over the 808 is the shutter control.

808 over 1020:

Larger 1/1.2 sensor
ND Filter
Stronger flash
8MP supersample mode = best format on 808 in good light
Natural colour reproduction
MicroSD card expansion & swappable battery , like a self respecting cam
OS

1020 over 808:

Better F2.2 lens (w/o ND filter!)
OIS & 6 elements lens (vs 5)
Dual image capture & newer algorithms
Configurable audio
Better camera UI?
Camera grip (Optional)

Galaxy S4 looks much better, especially at the corners of the studio scene. Nokia is a hype.

If you're gonna be re-shooting scenes with other phones you might as well toss in something like the Canon S110 into the testing IMO... It's pretty affordable ($30 less than the cost of this phone plus the grip...) and I bet a lot of people (at least within your audience) would only spend $300+ on a phone (primarily with it's camera in mind) if it can actually replacesomething like the S110 and not just outdo other more popular phones (nothing against WP8, can't deny the facts tho).

I see a similar painterly/watercolor effect from recent Fuji cameras equipped with X-Trans sensors. Specially apparent in areas of foliage and other high frequency details. Even in good light images have an over-processed look with blocked up details, which seem to be from unrefined noise reduction (the Fuji images where this fault does not appear have a more refined/natural look though). Reducing the images down to 5mp masks these imperfections well, but cannot hide the so so dynamic range of the sensor (the cityscape shot is clipped on both ends, much more so in the shadows). If users shoot at 5mp only, this actually looks decent and very detailed compared to other camera phones out now.

Quote: "In the "shareable" 5MP output of the same image, Nokia's imaging technology has cleverly produced a result with better tonal quality."

Except that the tonality is EXACTLY the same. Scaled to a fit a screen size of 1920x1200, there is absolutely zero difference in the tonality of the full-size and 5 MP images.

Even though 200 ISO looks worse than 6400 on my Pentax APS-sensor, it's still an interesting experiment in high resolution/small sensor size.